Jack The Lad

I was having a conversation with a few people last week around a very common topic in GAA, " Who is your favourite player of the last 20 years?"

In fairness, it's a broad question, and when I started to think about it, one player kept springing to mind, but not for the reason you think. When you ask most people to describe the type of player that Jack Mc Caffery is, they will use words like, pacy, direct, and serious line breaker. But to me the most impressive thing about Jack, was how he plays the game with a smile on his face.

He backs himself, makes loads of big plays, make loads of mistakes, and just moves onto the next ball, regardless of the outcome.

I remember the first GAELICperformance camp that I ran in Gormanstown, nearly 20 years ago, a group of children from the Clontarf club would come down as day campers, every day. Amongst that group was one Jack Mc Caffery, and while he wasn't the most skilful player at the camp, he was 100% the most enthusiastic, often being the last player off the pitch at the end of the day. He just wanted to play and learn.

As Jack developed into a regular senior player for Dublin, he seemed to carry with him that same attitude, just let me play and learn as I play. We hear so much about sticking to the process nowadays, that the process nearly weighs teams and players down as much as having to win did in the past.

I think as coaches, if we try to develop more Jack Mc Cafferys, the game and the people that play the game will be in a much healthier place. Skill them up, let them play, learn from mistakes, and move on real quick.

www.gaelicperformance.com